1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a portable computer and a charging method thereof, and more particularly to a portable computer capable of detecting the seal status of the battery so as to maintain the normal charge of the battery and a charging method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
The notebook computer is portable, and is powered by the battery installed therein to when not connected to any external power. Therefore, to keep the power supplied by the battery continuous and stable is essential to the operation of the system of the notebook computer. Currently, a battery used in notebook computer by the name of smart battery is provided. The smart battery has an advantage, that is, the smart battery provides battery data. The battery data include static data and dynamic data, wherein examples of static data includes manufacture name, device name, the device chemistry, serial number and manufacture data, and examples of dynamic data include relative state of charge (RSOC), charging current, charging voltage, current, voltage, temperature and battery status. The embedded controller (EC) of notebook computer reads static data only at the moment when the battery is plugged into notebook computer, and does not read any static data ever since. To the contrary, the EC still keep reading dynamic data after the battery is plugged into notebook computer.
The notebook computer obtains the relative state of charge of the smart battery according to the battery data. Thus, the notebook computer performs power management according to the obtained RSOC data and optimizes the utilization of the power utilization of the computer system according to the RSOC of the smart battery. For example, if the user does not emit any instruction or command to the host of the computer via the keyboard or other peripheral input/output device of the computer for a period of time, then the notebook computer will shut the display, the hard disc or other circuit elements according to the predetermined settings to save power. Or, when the RSOC comes down to a certain level, the notebook computer will decrease the brightness of the display frame so as to reduce power consumption and provide a warning message to remind the user that the smart battery needs to be charged. Or, when the RSOC of the smart battery has reached an extremely low level, data will be saved to a memory or hard disc, and the entire system will be shut down.
The smart battery has a security seal which must be sealed before the battery is delivered from the factory, otherwise when the smart battery is charged, the original battery data will be changed, causing abnormal operation to the battery and severely affecting the normal operation of the notebook computer.